Montanism

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MONTANISM

MONTANISM . Although there are various reports (e.g., Hippolytus, Refutatio 8.19.1; Eusebius, Church History 6.20.3) that the leaders of Montanism composed many writings, none of these has come down to us. As a result, special importance attaches to the approximately twenty-five surviving fragments of their prophecies and oracles (see new edition in Kirchengeschichtliche Entwürfe, 1960) and a few inscriptions, as well as to the writings from Tertullian's Montanist period, although the latter reflect essentially the later development of Montanism. Even the writings of the adversaries of Montanism have disappeared and are known to us only from citations by the fathers of the church. Especially important are Eusebius's account in his Church History and the Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, both of which are based on numerous sources. By contrast, what we know of Montanism from Jerome and Augustine has significantly less value as a source.

According to the sources, Montanism arose in Asia Minor in 156/7 ce and was centered there, at least in its first period. Its founder was Montanus, but he was evidently accompanied from an early date by prophetesses, among whom Priscilla (or Prisca) and especially Maximilla were particularly important. After they had first attracted attention by speaking in tongues, Montanus and his associates made use of intelligible oracles and prophecies to proclaim the final revelation and the will of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit was calling for an intensified expectation of the end, since the Parousia (the second coming of Christ) was imminent. The thousand-year reign would descend to earth at Pepuza (and Tymion?) in Phrygia, and the faithful were to travel there in order to share in it as soon as it appeared. They were to prepare themselves by intensified asceticism.

Glossolalia and the claim of a communication of the Spirit were at this time just as suspect to the official church in Asia Minor as was the expectation of an imminent end. The bishops endeavored in vain through exorcisms to resist the "new prophecy," as the apparently tightly organized movement was called, and they tried to coordinate their activity against the "Cataphrygians" (so called after their place of origin) at the first provincial synods. Despite these efforts, Montanism spread far beyond Asia Minor. Only with great difficulty was its recognition by the bishop of Rome prevented, and approximately in the year 207 in North Africa it made a convert of Tertullian, who became a passionate proselytizer for Montanism.

The fight against the movement was difficult because early Montanism was orthodox in its doctrine and exemplary in its ethics. Its characteristic traits—a heightened expectation of an imminent Parousia and a resultant intense asceticism (to the point of seeking martyrdom)—were basic elements of early Christianity, as were speaking in tongues and the claim to immediate revelation from the Holy Spirit. Montanus claimed that in him the Paraclete had made his appearance. After all, the coming of the Spirit was expressly announced in the Gospel of John. In addition, millenarianism found justification in the Revelation to John and was especially widespread in Asia Minor, and this even in the subsequent period. The Revelation to John and the Gospel of John were evidently among the spiritual sources from which Montanism was derived.

By the second half of the second century the official church and its theology had moved beyond the expectation of an imminent Parousia and had made room for the idea of postponement of the end. The Second Letter of Peter and the Shepherd of Hermas are clear proof of this. In the community at large, however, the expectation of an imminent end was still alive, at least in a latent form, and was given new life by Montanism. It was this expectation that made it possible for the movement to spread so quickly and so widely. The church's opposition to Montanism began to be effective only when the predicted return of the Lord did not occur and the prophetic energies of the movement fell off. Maximilla's oracle, "After me there will be no further prophet but only the end" (Epiphanius, Panarion 48.12.4), gave the church a weapon that became all the more effective as time passed after the death of Maximilla and neither the predicted end nor even the disturbances and wars preceding the end came to pass. During the second half of the second century, Montanism underwent the same kind of development that official Christianity had experienced: there was a withering of the prophetic element, cessation of glossolalia, and a decline in ethical standards.

It was the ethical rigorism of Montanism that converted Tertullian. When he became a Montanist in about 207, he evidently had been in conflict with the official church, which in his opinion was too lax, for some time. The gift of prophecy was still alive in Montanism at that time, as was eschatological expectation, though this was no longer as intense as in the beginning. The gift of tongues had disappeared, and the Lord's thousand-year reign was expected to come no longer in Asia Minor but in Jerusalem.

It is not possible to say for certain to what extent Montanism had spread in the West and how long it persisted there. Modern writers often rely too much on the lists of heresies, in which Montanism soon acquired its fixed place, as proof that the movement actually existed in a given area. Although Augustine wrote of "Tertullianists" in Africa, it is uncertain to what extent they are to be identified with Montanism. On the other hand, in the East the laws against heretics give the impression down to the beginning of the fifth century that Montanism was still a living reality there.

The attempt (by Wilhelm E. Schepelern and, later, B. W. Goree Jr., for example) to explain Montanism in terms of the paganism of Asia Minor and especially the cult of Cybele is not a promising one in view of the state of the sources. What these writers view as a tradition peculiar to Asia Minor (e.g., emphasis on ecstasy, the special place of women, intense asceticism) was in fact the common possession of early Christianity.

Bibliography

My contributions to Kirchengeschichtliche Entwürfe (Gütersloh, 1960) expand on themes treated above: "Bemerkungen zum Montanismus und zur frühchristlichen Eschatologie" (pp. 105–148) and "Augustin und der Montanismus" (pp. 149–164). See also Heinrich Kraft's "Die altkirchliche Prophetie und die Entstehung des Montanismus," Theologische Zeitschrift 11 (1955): 249–271; Douglas Powell's "Tertullianists and Cataphrygians," Vigiliae Christianae 29 (1975): 33–54; W. E. Schepelern's Der Montanismus und die phrygischen Kulte: Eine religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung (Tübingen, 1929); and B. W. Goree Jr.'s "The Cultural Bases of Montanism" (Ph. D. diss., Baylor University, 1980). Pierre de Labriolle's Les sources de l'histoire du montanisme (Paris, 1913) is still fundamental, even though the editions used are largely outdated.